Saturday, July 23, 2011

Rita Hayworth may be best known as the red-head Femme Fatale, but for a short period of time Rita could have been called a Blonde Bombshell. Though her transformation into a blonde wasn't her first major make over, it was definitely the one that got the most attention.

Rita is a publicity still for The Lady From Shanghai

Few people remember that Rita was a natural brunette, but that is probably because the studios dyed her hair red before she hit it big in the movies. Rita changed her signature hairstyle for her starring role in the film The Lady From Shanghai. Under the guidance of her former husband Orson Welles, her hair was cropped short and dyed a shade known as topaz blonde. The change was done without Columbia studio head, Harry Cohn's knowledge and it made him furious. The film was a flop at the box office and many say it was because the public couldn't accept one of their biggest stars changing so drastically. Rita never made another film as a blonde.

Rita caused quite a stir at the studio as she changed her signature style

The big transformation was documented in a series of photographs that you can find below.

Thursday, July 21, 2011

Sunday, July 17, 2011

You can learn a lot of things from classic movies, some things more useful... others not. Below are a few things you could learn from Dorothy Shaw & Loreli Lee in the 1953 film Gentlemen Prefer Blondes.

I didn't go into watching this picture expecting much because it is described as a 'B' picture and Joan Crawford is usually described as an 'eroding' star. Needless to say, Straight Jacket has been added to my long list of favorite movies. If this movie were any other, Joan Crawford would have deserved an Oscar for her portrayal as Lucy Harbin, the axe yielding murderess who returns from the asylum 20 years after murdering her cheating husband and his mistress. Every time I watch one of Joan's films, I am reminded of her gorgeous acting abilities. She was able to go from sane to crazy to devoid of emotion to suducing her much younger daughter's boyfriend effortlessly. I won't spoil it, but the end comes as quite a surprise!

Monday, July 4, 2011

The first role we will explore in this series is Lana Turner as Cora Smith in The Postman Always Rings Twice. In this film Lana Turner plays a married woman who falls for a handyman and the two plot to murder her husband, but in the end the double-crossers get what was coming to them.

Sunday, July 3, 2011

This is the first of the series Sketch To Screen. In this series of photographs, we will document costume design from the sketch paper to the screen where the costumes were made famous. In the first post of the series, we are going to look at the Edith Head designed gown Bette Davis wore in the beloved party scene of All About Eve.

DESIGN: ankle length, made of a heavy brown silk, with elbow-length cuffs & pockets at the waist, all trimmed in sable

Blog Content

All text and graphics [unless otherwise stated] were created by me, Craig Wingard. If you would like to use any of the content on this blog, please feel free to email me (blamemameblog [at] gmail.com). Some of the content on this website, such as pictures, textures, actions, etc have been collected on the internet over many years and I do not always remember where they were from. If you find anything that is yours and would like credit, please contact me. Thanks and enjoy!